A common method for finalizing purchases between a consumer and a merchant is via a payment terminal located at a checkout location. Typically in a merchant environment, a merchant has (A) a merchant facing ECR (electronic cash register) that is used to identify the goods or services that a customer is purchasing (such as by scanning a bar code); (B) a merchant-facing payment terminal into which the merchant inputs the amount of the transaction and captures a customer's payment credentials via payment instrument (i.e. credit card, digital wallet, smartphone application, etc.); and (C) a customer-facing PIN (personal identification number) pad that enables a consumer to input a PIN number for debit card purchases. In this system, a customer pays for a good or service by handing the payment instrument to the merchant for the merchant to input in the merchant-facing payment terminal.
A disadvantage of the existing system is that it requires customers to hand over their payment instruments to merchants since the merchant-facing payment function is not separate from the merchant interface, unless the merchant chooses to turn the payment terminal to face the customer during the transaction, which is often difficult or impossible due to the physical placement of either the payment terminal or its cabling.